5 Big Geek Movie Questions – 2014

Published 1 year ago
by
Kofi Outlaw
, Updated February 16th, 2014 at 9:25 am,
This is a list post.

The new year is in full sway, but the shape of things is only now becoming clear. For instance, the recent news that Batman vs. Superman could be delayed until 2016 drastically changed expectations for the 2014 landscape, while new blockbuster properties like Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy are only now starting to make their presence known.
Every year we like to step back and look over the world of movies from a geek perspective to try and spot the major questions that emerge from the chaos. At the end of the year we'll revisit this post and see how our expectations were (or were not) met - but for now, here are our 5 Big Questions for Movie Geeks in 2014.

Will Indie Directors Have Blockbuster Success?

Director Gareth Edwards is going from bare-bones indie sci-fi (Monsters) to the massive scale of Godzilla - easily one of the most anticipated films of the year. Gareth Evans will grow from the low-budget cult-hit The Raid: Redemption to full-on blockbuster-level action in The Raid 2.
On the comic book side: The Russo Brothers left behind their Arrested Development and Community sitcom days to tackle Captain America: The Winter Soldier, while the poster-child for offbeat indie films, James Gunn (pictured left with raccoon actor), is trying to launch Marvel's riskiest property yet with Guardians of the Galaxy.
Even from this small example, one can clearly see that some hard-working underdogs are finally getting a crack at the big time. Here's hoping they learned worthwhile lessons about making more out of less.

Will Sci-Fi Outclass Superheroes?

Last year it was surprising that sci-fi outliers like Oblivion and Gravity won more acclaim than anticipated favorites like Star Trek Into Darkness and Pacific Rim. Unsurprising? Thor, Iron Man and Superman all made solid bank.
This year, however, sci-fi is getting some heavyweight clout. Former Dark Knight Trilogy collaborators Chris Nolan and Wally Pfister are each making star-studded blockbuster sci-fi flicks with Interstellarand Transcendence, respectively. Tom Cruise is going sci-fi again for Edge of Tomorrow and The Wachowskis are trying to improve their Cloud Atlas numbers with stars Mila Kunis and Channing Tatum headlining Jupiter Ascending.
With that lineup of talent, superheroes could be in for a fight to hold onto that box office top tier.

How Much Do We REALLY Want to Know?

A lot of focus has been put on a the crazy year in movies that will be 2015 - but in order to get to that point, there needs to be a lot of work done in 2014.
Even though Batman vs. Supermanhas been delayed (or has it?) Zack Snyder, Ben Affleck and Co. need to get to work soon - as do the teams behind Avengers: Age of Ultronand Star Wars Episode VIIand Jurassic World. With all these big films going into production, legitimate spoilers could start trickling from every inch of the interwebs.
But how much do we want to know in advance? Who wants to arrive at that epic lineup of 2015 films knowing EVERY single twist, surprise or plot beat of the movies they are most excited for? Too much info can be a truly terrible thing...

Could This Be Marvel Studios' Best Year Yet?

Marvel Studios has already accomplished so much - but 2014 could be another milestone year.
Captain America: The Winter Soldierand Guardians of the Galaxyare probably the riskiest combination of films Marvel has released in a single year - but both are riding on strong buzz for their great scripts and unique directorial visions.
If both films perform well, then Marvel could firmly establish some unproven properties as box office earners; launch a new multi-media franchise with Guardians; and earn two counts of Dark Knight-style critical praise in the process. Not too shabby.
(Image credit: Skinny Glasses @ DeviantArt)

Will Third-Party Shared Universes Work?

Marvel and DC are the two big shared universe players (though the latter is still struggling to get off the ground); however, in 2014 there will be other studios making a run at it.
In 2014 a lot of eyes will be on Fox and Sony, whose tentpole films X-Men: Days of Future Pastand The Amazing Spider-Man 2 will each try and launch new Marvel superhero universes - outside of the one populated by TheAvengers. In the eyes of fans that's a big risk, as third-party studios carry the stigma of mismanaging their superhero properties.
With big things already promised for future installments (Apocalypse, Venom), these third-party superhero universes better start with a big bang.

Other Questions...

Those are our 5 Big Questions for 2014. Are YOU a geek or a hardcore fan? What questions are YOU asking in the new calendar year?
Here are a few we had on the back or our minds:

Is this a good year for reboots? Two new Hercules films, a new vision of Robocop... does any of it look good?

48 Comments

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The Insufferable Deadpool 1 year ago

Great questions Kofi. I think superheroes will once again dominate the box office. Captain America will no doubt outclass its predecessor and Spider-Man always makes big bank. X-Men and Guardians are the question marks for me.

Yeah Guardians is the biggest risk, it either will be really GREAT or totally BOMB. And Science fiction just doesn’t have the same buzz as super hero movies, but they still can have prestigious success like Gravity this year and Interstellar next year.

I’d love to be able to time travel to the release dates of all these movies because even though I hate spoilers, I can’t help but click on every rumour link I come across, especially the batman v superman ones.

Why do people at Screen Rant like Oblivion? It, in no way, was more acclaimed than Star Trek Into Darkness or Pacific Rim. Hell, the movie wasn’t even acclaimed at all. It has been at best, noted as average by critics. While STID was one of the best reviewed blockbusters of the year, so I must say, that is a bunch of nonsense.

On a another note, Transcendence is seeming less and less attractive to me. Interstellar will no doubt fill the theaters and hopefully be another classic Nolan.

We have the unique opportunity to canvas a wide variety of opinions via site and social media comments, etc.

Based on what I MYSELF have seen, in general, people were pleasantly impressed by Oblivion, and somewhat let down by STID. At the end of the year, this seemed to still hold true for that wide middle of the fanbase.

Of course each individual may fall on a different place along this spectrum – but I try to base my statements off that wide middle, as best as I’ve observed it.

I totally understand the different perspectives Kofi! My reasoning behind my comments was that, as another user commented, STID and Pacific Rim were both critically more successful in every category and also more financially successful. The only reason people would be disappointed in both mentioned films because of the hype going into those, which was not as consistent with Oblivion. Overall I feel both STID and Pacific Rim are leagues ahead of Oblivion, but can understand your logic behind your post.

I was hyped by Pacific Rim and still hold it up as the best movie of 2013 in my personal opinion.

I also wasn’t hyped at all about STID, gave it a shot when it was on TV early in January and found it to be lifeless, dull and with not much happening.

Oblivion airs on my birthday (February 7th) so I’ll see how that it but I wasn’t hyped about that either, despite it looking good in the trailers.

Anyone who’s seen my comments on this site knows that I think people judging movies on RT percentages is just fooling themselves and that site isn’t really a good judge on what you as an individual will like or dislike.

I was also gonna point that out. Star Trek 2 and Pacific Rim were received better than Oblivion was, that goes for box office returns and reviews. Oblivion borrowed too much from other stuff. Moon especially.

Don’t get me wrong I can see why you could dig Oblivion! Theres a lot of really cool stuff there. I just hate how much it ripped off Moon, not to mention elements of The Matrix and an antagonist that looked all too much like Hal 1000.

I get what you’re saying. I know the movies have different messages to get across. If I were to be more specific…..

(OBLIVION SPOILERS!!!!!!)

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It reminded me of Moon BEFORE the clone part. At the beginning of the film when Tom Cruise is flying around doing diligence on all the big water machines it was just like when Sam Rockwell was checking on the energy harvesting machines in the opening sequence of Moon. The dialogue was extremely similar, the camera angles were similar, the machines looked rather similar…. The only differences were the setting and the “scavs” that Cruise has to deal with. Later when they had the clone plot twist(which I saw coming by the way) it felt forced.

Hopefully that makes sense….

Despite all this I did enjoy the movie. I thought the drones were VERY cool especially in that first scene where the drone destroys all the scavs in the underground library place. The film was practically perfect visually and stylistically. The effects were VERY good. Personally I would vote for Oblivion over some of the other Oscar nominees for visual effects.

In the X Men, Cap and Guardians I trust. I will go to the cinema at least twice to watch them.

Some people at screen rant didn’t like Pacific Rim at all. In some articles it felt almost like ill-will from their part. Numbers don’t lie. The film made more money and was better received than Oblivion.

will Fox pull its head from its A$$ and green light DEADPOOL? Will Mark Millar finally pull himself away from a mirror while making out with himself and his own work to finally give us DEADPOOL or X FORCE??

Your questions are interesting, Kofi. Personally, I have almost no interest (yet) in Guardians of the Galaxy, but very interested in seeing both Transcendence (Depp!) and Interstellar (Nolan!). I’m admittedly more of a sci-fi geek (loved Star Trek: Into Darkness) than a super hero geek. But, truly enjoyed all 3 Iron Man and The Avengers films.

I remember seeing the original Robocop in theatres. Keeping a “wait and see” attitude on this reboot. The original had heart, even if the FX are dated by today’s standards.

It’s hard sometimes when you’re watching a movie in the theatre and it’s playing on a huge screen in front of you. I try to either look down at my phone (the lights are often not totally dim during trailers so it’s not as distracting) or just look away or something, but I can still hear everything. I used to be excited about trailers, but now I just want to avoid them (unless I know nothing about a film and want to know if I’ll be interested in seeing it).

Good questions, but I’m most interested in the Transformers question. I’ve had my hopes dashed twice before, but I still have a glimmer of hope that MB can deliver as promised this time. I won’t be there on opening night, but I might catch a cheap night showing of T4 if the reviews aren’t horrible.

In my view, no, not at all. It looks like the most horrible, generic piece of crap I’ve had the misfortune to view several trailers for in the hope there’ll be something in there that makes the whole thing worth watching but nope, nothing. I won’t be going to see it.

My mom says it looks incredible! I on the other hand, agree with you Dazz. His suit looks like i could make it outta lego bins…lol. It just looks like utter crap.

…Great piece Kofi, great questions, also have on more…

How much money will Marvel make this year. I mean…there is an BOAT LOAD of Marvel movies, Tasm2, X-Men:DOFP, GotG, Cap:TWS,….My mind will be blown this year by most movies. We have finally get a year of some originality with Transcendence and GotG.

Most looking forward to; Cap TWS(The trailer blew my mind, this is where Cap belongs, they rather handled his origin poorly in the set dates they had imo, But this, this is Captain America.) Then GoTG(looks incredible. Really appreciate that they hired a raccoon to do base CGI and movements. Very unique.) Then Tasm2(Yes, the CGI on the trailer seems slightly toony, BUT I think it’s just the film itself, not the CGI. Like how EVERY film has the teal-orange hue, but this just seems, Bright?) Then Transcendence, not a lot of hype on it but it looks very good. Depp is stepping up to the plate(finally) and showing again the number of genres he can bring to the table! I will most likely see every Sci-Fi and Super Hero movie this year, except Robo-Cop. Godzilla and Dawn Of the Apes looks incredible as well! 2014, make me pee my pants. I dare you.

I have to say I’m not really into to xmen..my wife digs it if only cuz the actors in first class were pretty…so I’ll most likely see it but the francise has been fractured with retcon rebbots and other issues. Gotg sseems like it could be a hit or a bomb…I’m worried about the focus many are throwing rocket racoon…I mean most people seem to say “omg! Rocket racoon this is bad a$$!”…if they don’t market very carefully it can backfire. I mean chris pratt is not really a name many would know…he’s done some voice work and I’ve seen a few of his movies…but really they need to showcase gammora and draxx because from the promo they look like crap…also groot looks odd and…idk it seems to me it is not the marvel movie people will expect.

I do not really see the difference between sci-fi movies and super hero movies and if you were to ask the casual movie goer I doubt they see them as being that different in many ways.Unless there is really a deep story or great characterization many people just go see these films and see the visuals and special effects, and at this point much of it is going to start to bleed together since it seems to be the same people involved with only minor changes.

The article states Gravity might be considered as sci-fi in an extremely technical sense and I would make the argument that it has little to do with the movies it was mentioned with like Star Trek Into Darkness and Pacific Rim, the latter two being more congruent with a movie like Thor 2 with all the alien looking creatures and space ships flying around.

I think that sci fi is getting better and comic books movies seem to be falling in my opinion, mainly because they take a character say they will be in the film build our hopes then give us something from right field, and continuity issues seem to be a huge problem from sequel to sequel. as for remakes/reboots the studios make watered down version and you can tell they are made for money and no love motivates them. X-men could be something really really good if they fix continuity issues and get the x-men in them already and take focus off of Wolverine and Magneto so much too much of something just gets boring, I want to see some of the other cool characters have a x-men movie story like Cyclops, Gambit, and Rogue, Archangel, and some of the others. Spiderman seems to be heading in the right direction and bringing in other characters like they should, setting up other characters with Easter eggs in this one so you do not have to explain all the details of a bunch of villains you can really focus on one main one and tell a great story. With Marvel I was left hanging with The Leader being created on film only to have people tell me go buy some comics to find out what happened….No I want to Film version, I do not watch a film only to have to buy comics to be told what happened next, TWO SEPERATE THINGS. I want to see a Hulk solo film with S.H.I.E.L.D AND CAMEOS with The LEADER as the villain. and Mandarin this really made me lose hope in Marvel and getting excited when I hear this or that character will be in a film I just do not get my hopes up anymore, and now I look more toward sci fi films, and others. As for the Indie thing well Hollywood is a controlled thing so if they do not have a Producer then no, and if they get one then their stuff becomes something made just to make a quick buck, I would love to see films made by really creative people who want to show us different unique types of films throughout the year, but we will always have high action explosion films in Summer, Love stories at a certain time, Horror films near Halloween (etc) its all a gimmick so we take what we can get and wish for the best.

When I first heard biblical movies were going to show my reaction was-blugh, they always miss the point of them, and make them cheesy. But after seeing the trailer for Noah, my thoughts changed drastically. It looks very well built and handled. Can’t wait for the 2014 movie wheel to start rolling, it’s gonna be one hecka’ of a ride!

Awesome article kofi, i wonder if it would be possible to have x-men and spidey get a shared universe which would be interesting if disney is not interested in coming to a deal with either company to have a meeting of heroes.

No opinon on the scifi movies but think i am familiar with tom’s though and it sound kinda mind bending.

X-men, spidey and captain are the main movies i am looking forward to. Hoping robocop will be bad ass…

I did not include phase 2 movies because their award seasons have not fully concluded yet. Still, just looking at Oscars nods you can see that The Dark Knight was nominated for twice as many Oscars as all six Marvel movies combined, and it actually won two, one of them being a top 5 category win (Heath Ledger.) The ONLY categories Marvel has been nominated in is Visual Effects or Sound Editing, while The Dark Knight was nominated in the far more prestigious categories such as Best Supporting Actor, Best Cinematography, and Best Editing as well as the technical awards like visual effects, sound editing (won,) art direction, sound mixing, and makeup.

If Marvel ever drops the kid first attitude towards their movies I may take them more seriously. Not that they care, the kid friendly thing is bringing in TRUCKLOADS of money!

Who cares if it’s Marvel or DC films? CBM fans get a bunch of choices this year, which is cool. DC is taking longer to get their universe off the ground, but they’ll come around, and then we’ll have even more choices.

These are some huge questions. Superheroes will continue to be successful, I’m positive of it, but the newcomer Guardians may have some slight problems since it’s the most obscure property. Seeing Spidey and the X-Men have a shared universe would be cool, if done correctly.

Also, I’m positive Transformers: AOE will be the “fresh, new direction” they’ve been promising. There are some sleek designs, more humanoid faces for some characters, and not to mention the level of nostalgia being brought in (Drift, Lockdown, Dinobots, etc.). Kofi, have you given up on Transformers are you like you were when TF2 was coming out?

Im sorry, there is one thing that bugs me, X men: Days of the future past is an ONGOING movie series, x men started in 2000, 8 years BEFORE the first marvel cinematic universe started, its not “beginning” its ongoing